Ford Fiesta earns top ranking from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

The 2011 Ford Fiesta earned a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). It is the first minicar to earn the pick since the introduction of a new roof strength test. The award applies to vehicles built after July 2010.

Ford credits the car's use of high-strength steels, energy-absorbing front and side crash structure and airbag technologies. The Fiesta's energy-absorbing body structure is designed to absorb and redirect crash forces away from occupants. Plus, it features the most standard airbags in any small car, as well as standard electronic stability control.

"Fiesta is proof that a small car can deliver big safety," said Sue Cischke, Ford's group vice president of sustainability, environment and safety engineering. "Fiesta combines rigidity and more airbags--smartly deployed--than its competition, as well as standard stability control."

The Fiesta uses cold- and hot-formed high-strength steel in the body structure, adding rigidity and saving weight. In fact, Ford says more than 55 percent of the car's body structure uses these high-strength steels in the floor, front rails, beams and in the rigid body reinforcement ring. Ford also says the Fiesta's A- and B-pillars, rocker panels and floor enforcements are all high-strength steel.

The Fiesta also offers a small-car exclusive driver's knee airbag, intended to help reduce lower-leg injuries. There's also dual-stage first-row airbags, side-impact airbags and side curtain airbags. Sensors determine occupant weight and seatbelt status to optimize the force with which the airbags deploy.

By Wes Raynal